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Bachelor in Paradise alum Jade Roper Tolbert, and her husband and former co-star Tanner Tolbert, will not get to keep the $1 million from DraftKings after all.
The sports betting company has stripped the reality star, Instagram influencer, podcaster and mother of two of the top fantasy sports prize that she won earlier this month for coming in first place during its Millionaire Maker contest during the wild card weekend of the NFL playoffs, USA Today reported on Saturday. Jade and Tanner have not commented and had previously attributed her win to “pure luck.”
DraftKings had begun investigating her win after online users accused the couple of collusion, complaining that the two submitted 150 picks each with no overlap in their lineups, which doubled their chance of winning.
DraftKings’ rules state each contestant is allowed to enter up to 150 potential lineups, and prohibit players from having more than one account or “colluding with any other individual(s) or engaging in any type of syndicate play.”
The company has not released the results of its investigation into Jade’s win. It said in a statement on Twitter on Saturday, “DraftKings has decided to update the standings for several contests. All customers affected by the updated standings will be notified directly.”
The former runner up in the wild card weekend contest, user spclk36, is now listed as the $1 million winner in the wild card weekend contest, USA Today reported.
The person had hired prominent attorney Alan Milstein after the controversy erupted, suggesting they planned to contest the results after Jade was declared the top winner.
“Thrilled to announce my client has been declared the winner of the DraftKings Millionaire Maker Contest,” Milstein tweeted. “I have had my share of interesting cases but never conceived this would be one of them.”
At $25 per entry, Jade and Tanner spent a combined $7,500 to enter this particular contest. They each entered the maximum number of entries every week of the NFL season, according to ESPN, which suggests they had spent a total of $135,000 on DraftKings entries since the season began until the wild card weekend.
After they were accused of cheating, Jade and Tanner had said in a statement, “We respect that Draft Kings feels they must do their due diligence in regard to Jade winning their $1million dollar prize for the fantasy contest for the NFL’s wild-card round this weekend. Though we must ponder, would the questions, accusations and curiosity about this win be the same if the winner had been male and someone who wasn’t already in the public eye?”
“It is incredibly important for us to establish that Jade’s win is nothing more than pure luck and we are confident that Draft Kings will determine the same,” they added.